Untouchable
by The-Cursed-Daughter
Summary: She wants to be saved and to apologize and to forget who she was and who she is and let Kreops have the damned rosario because all she wants to do is live...........Hellboy/OC/Johann


_Okay, just to show our reviewers in the Hellboy fandom that we haven't died, we're posting!_

This is a teaser fic that Kit wrote for a Hellboy/OC/Johann fic that we'll be posting up when our hiatus is over.

_Which may not be for a while, because we have a helluva lot of stories, but PLEASE be patient with us!_

If people like this, she will expand on the story, if not........well, then no Hellboy/OC/Johann for you!

_**Warnings: We own nothing but the plot, Opal, Kreops, Opal's brother, her father, her mother (Aranabella), and her kingdom. The rosario is ours too.**_

* * *

She is two years old, and she learns.

She is young, and there is much to teach her before she claims the throne. She must learn to speak well, to stand well, to act well. Her subjects-to-be crowd her, and she can feel their expectations pressing down on her, whispering in her ears.

"_Do well."_

"_Don't fail us."_

"_Lead us wisely."_

"_Treat us kindly."_

"_Don't let the humans wipe us out."_

"_Don't make the same mistakes."_

She listens diligently, learning the mistakes of her predecessors and vows not to make them, not to spill the blood that was already _so_ scarce. And she astonishes her peers and her betters with knowledge one would not expect from her, and they smile, thinking they at last found their queen.

* * *

She is six, and she knows.

She knows she has an older brother, and she knows she has a father. She knows she has guards and servants and instructors and subjects who will lay down their lives for her because she is the future queen. She knows she has a people to lead, and nightmares to protect them from.

She also knows that her older brother will always be by her side—as he has been since her birth—and that her father only loves her because she was the spitting image of his dead wife, the mother she has never met. She knows guards and servants and instructors and subjects will lay down their lives for her because she is their future queen, but _only_ because of that; because _she_ is their only hope when their king is mad with grief. She knows she has a people to lead because no one else _can_, and she knows that the nightmares she must protect them from are growing ever closer.

And she also knows, as she and her brother see Kreops tenderly touch the eye-patch he has only gotten the other day, watching out of the corners of their eyes as he snarls at her when their backs are turned, that she was to keep her friends close, and her enemies closer.

* * *

She is twelve and she understands.

She understands the world she has been thrust into, the whispers behind her back and the veiled, barbed comments to her face. She understands that she walks a thin line between losing herself and losing them, and she understands that _neither_ is an option as her _whole world_ watches her, searching for the signs that show that they made a mistake—that she isn't their savior after all.

She plays the politics of the court, understanding that her brother would always be by her side, and would always keep her safe. She flirts and carefully hides insults and warning and threats within her words, understanding the way people think. Because she understands that she is valuable to them so long as she proves _she's_ the one they've been waiting for. Otherwise, she is just the bastard memory of a better time, before her father lost his mind and the people lost their king.

* * *

She is eighteen, and she ascends.

No words were spoken, nothing changes, but she ascends. Her time as a child ends—not that, she will argue, that she had a childhood—and she propels into the realm of the adults. Their tones change, their actions turn harsher, and nothing is as apparent or easy as it was when she was younger.

She ascends, and finds that not much has changed. Her brother is still her protector, the one she trusts more than she trusts herself. The world had never been shown to her through rose-tinted glasses, and she has understood since she could sit up the responsibilities that were shoved upon her were not a choice, but a _duty_. She ascends and views the world differently, watching as her father slowly falls farther and farther apart, realizing that she _wasn't_ his wife, but another woman, and that looks don't mean that Aranabella will ever be back.

* * *

She is forty-five and she bleeds.

By her people's standards she is still a child, and her appearance is no different that it was nearly four decades ago. Her skin is pricks with pain as the needle plunges into her skin again and again, the blood pouring down her shoulder to mix with the ink newly marked upon her skin. Her blood travels down her arm to her clenched fists. She _burns_ with rage, _angry_ that her fate has demanded this. She is angry with everyone; her father for withdrawing to his own world, leaving _her_ to salvage the scraps—not yet queen, but not longer princess. She is angry with her people, for their cold expectance, their demands that she fix everything, without raising their hands to help her help them—reaching out to _take_, but not to _give_.

And for the first time, she realizes, as the artist wipes the blood away and the new tattoo—the mark of the untouchable—glistens in the candlelight, that she is angry with her brother, for not being able to save her from this, for not protecting her the one time she needs him.

* * *

She is seventy-two and she fights.

The sky is red with flaming arrows and the blood of the fallen that has stained the sky, the flora, seeping into the very earth she fights on. The humans are back, and she fights in place of her father. Her brother clashes with a man behind her, and she and him fight as one, repeating the things they practiced for years. She winces as her sword digs into her skin, feeling the _rush_ as her blood spilled and she calls the guardians forth, swirling across her blade and tearing her enemies to shreds.

Her people fall all around her, soldiers and civilians, as the humans pity no one. She does not pity either, slaughtering anyone who crosses her, proving that she _can_ and _will_ fight for her people. She feels the warm splatter of her brother's blood across her back, staining the mark on her shoulder as it seeps through her tunic. In seconds, the man screams as her brother runs him through, and she finishes off her own opponent.

Suddenly, she falls to the ground, struck by something she did not see. Dimly she can hear the shrieks of victory from her people as the humans shout retreat orders and fall back. She stares up at the red sky as her vision begins to fade. When she wakes, it is still has not come back—it never does.

* * *

She is one hundred and thirteen, and she smiles.

All around her, the festivities swirl into a cacophony of senses. She smiles as she smells the almost-sickly scent of the pastries and the wine and cordial, smiles as she hears the people cheering, children screaming with joy. She smiles as she senses their bare feet running across the large marble hall where _all_ of her kind gather.

They are not yet _her_ people—still her father's, though he shows himself to none but his family—but they celebrate _her_ victory. Almost none of the men and women she had fought beside to begin with were here, most of them lost with the tide of war. Her sight was a casualty as well, but she has taken it in stride, quickly proving that she is still a force to be reckoned with. The only change is her brother, who, once at her side, was now at her elbow, his hand gently guiding her. The humans are gone, and she is well on her way to being what the people—not yet _hers_—expect of her.

* * *

She is two hundred, and she cries.

She has never cried before, not when she was young, not during the war, and not since—until today. The people have long accepted her as queenling, and the humans have been gone for a long time. Perhaps they have forgotten. Perhaps they have learned. It didn't matter what has happened, but the humans have gone. And _she_ has chased them out.

She cries for reasons she doesn't yet understand, for people she doesn't yet know, and for things that have yet to happen. And yet, she knows—but she doesn't know she knows—and she cries for that too. The tears streaming down her cheeks remind her of the blood pouring down her back as her left shoulder was marked. They remind her of the splatters of blood that marred the ground of the battles she fought. And they remind her of the blood that stained her _own_ skin—the blood of a woman she doesn't recall, who died without ever holding her daughter in her arms.

* * *

She is three hundred and sixty-eight, and she laughs.

She has not laughed in _many_ years. As queen—not yet official but accepted—she has no time for humor. Her father, who has abandoned the real world for his own, had never laughed, and neither will she.

But now she laughs, but not because of humor. She laughs because it is just another something that is required of her. Her brother's hand tightens in concern on her elbow, and she knows that she is _not_ her father. Her people did not fight with her, _for_ her, because she was her father. Her father has abandoned his people, his family, and his world. He did not laugh, and he made mistakes.

She _does not_ make mistakes. She _is not_ her father. And so she laughs.

* * *

She is four hundred and two, and she screams.

Although she laughs, true emotions were _never_ to be shown in front of the people. They were not to see even the slightest hint of anger, because anger was what her father showed, before he spiraled out of control. Anger before grief. Grief before madness. She can not win them over if they look at her and see _him_.

So her mirror becomes her solace, catching her emotions and keeping them where they can't reach her, because she can't see them anymore. Her brother watches from the corner of her room, concerned but cautious, knowing how much she needs it. She screams because she never wanted _this_, because she _isn't_ her mother, and because she never wanted to be queen, and wishes that the last battle had taken her life as well as her sight.

* * *

She is five hundred and twenty-nine, and she is bestowed.

It is official. _The_ people are _her_ people. _The_ land is _her_ land. Her father is no more, just someone else to fold away into the pages of history.

The priest reverently lifts the rosario—the cross whose name she bears—and places it on her neck, in front of the square of _her_ people. The rosario, made of priceless jewels stained with untold amounts of blood, the one she had stared at for years as a child, hung heavy and tight around her neck. Her brother stood behind her, and she can sense him smiling—the darkness behind her eyes brightening a small bit.

The rosario—her birthright—takes some of the burden from her, yet she knows how much more it adds. It is her responsibility now; no longer can she hide behind her father. She murmurs the words she has known she would recite ever since she could read, and knows that as she is bestowed, the time to prove herself was over.

The _real_ trials have yet to begin.

* * *

She is six hundred and thirty-four, and she fears.

Her father is dead; murdered, and though she knows she should, she doesn't sorrow. Kreops—the damned _traitor_—has given her no time to grief, even if she wants to. The rosario swings against her neck, painfully striking her chest as she runs. It has given her new awareness, and she 'sees' the fortress burning, smoke rising. The world is imploding and someone's screaming _"Opal!"_ and all she can see is darkness as the sky catches fire and the water runs red.

Kreops has convinced her people that she is not fit to rule, and is trying to take the throne she has worked _so_ hard for away from her. She knows he is after her, and though she wants to turn and fight, she knows it was never about what she _wants_—it was always about what was good for _them_. And, stifling the fear in her chest, pressing the rosario close, she grasps her brother's hand and runs.

* * *

She is six hundred and thirty-five, and she lies.

She and her brother stand before a group of people, and she lies. Names that do not belong to her and histories that do not exist spill from her lips. The red demon in front of her—she knows what he is meant to become—arches his eyebrows, and she 'sees' that he does not trust the blind vampire before him, that he _knows_ she is lying. That she is _holding back_.

She lies, not to protect her and her brother's identities, but she lies because she wants to _forget_. She truly does want to be who she says she is, but the truth is no more believable than her lie. That her kingdom is no longer hers, that she is running from Kreops, who is not satisfied with her throne, but wants her life, seems _fantastical_ compared to the tale of two siblings who have survived a massacre one hundred years ago.

And she lies, weaving a tale to save their lives, and the demon watches, trying to see the _truth_.

* * *

She is six hundred and thirty-six, and she loves.

She loves blindly, not knowing what she is doing. Her duty had never called for her to love before, and so she never has. They are both good men, and that confuses her more. There can not be _two_—there can be no more _confusion_ in a world that she can _barely_ grasp anyway.

One love is wary, cautious. She does not trust him, nor he her. Why _should_ he? She has lied to him from the beginning, hiding her origins, her name, the reason she wears the heavy cross around her neck. His identity has always been apparent to her, from the crimson of his skin, to his hand of stone. But she _wants_ to trust him, and to be worthy of his trust, because he is _so_ much like her, and she has never not felt alone.

The other was once human, but no longer—as she was once queen, and now exile. He is scrambling for a scrap of his former life, when he knew who he was and what he was doing. She sees herself in him also, lost and reaching out for whoever is _closest_, whoever feels the same pain. She loves him, and he her, but it is _true_, or is it because they both have nothing left of who they once were?

* * *

She is six hundred and thirty-six, and she falls.

She can feel the stone under her fingers just as solidly as she can feel the abyss beneath her—the darkness lapping at her feet, _beckoning_ her down. He stands above her, and she knows, knows _before_ he does, that he _will not_ help her. It hurts her to see him fight against himself to help her, and part of her hopes he doesn't.

The tale she wove has unraveled, and she has been caught in the tangled threads. Kreops is _back_, and he will stop at nothing to possess her birthright—and her life along with it. His rage has pushed her over the edge, and she tries in vain to pull herself back. She can 'see' the demon standing above her, fighting with himself. She can sense the battle raging within him—she _betrayed_ him, but he _loves_ her. She can hear her brother, injured, and smells his blood in the air, her heart ripping as his keening cries echo throughout the cavern. Once again, he can't save her when she needs him to.

She can sense the _others_—the other one she loves with them as well—through the stone, and knows they will come to save them any moment. And she _wants_ them to. She _wants_ to be saved and to apologize and to forget who she was and who she is and let Kreops _have_ the damned rosario because all she wants to do is _live_. The blood—her blood, Kreops's blood, the demon's blood—coats her fingers and her lips, and she realizes that it was _never_ about what she wants, and it never will be.

And so, as the demon finally chooses, and her brother finally stands, and the others are _this close_ to breaking through, she lets go and falls.

* * *

_REVIEW PLEASE!_

_Kit &_ Violet


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